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The Guardian reports that a secret list prepared for a top British security official accuses peaceful Muslim groups, politicians, a television channel and a Scotland Yard unit of sharing the ideology of terrorists.

The list was drawn up for Charles Farr, the director general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), a directorate of the Home Office. Farr is a former senior intelligence officer.

It was sent to him in June by the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism thinktank which has received about £1m in government funding.

The briefing document says:

“The ideology of non-violent Islamists is broadly the same as that of violent Islamists; they disagree only on tactics.

“These are a selection of the various groups and institutions active in the UK which are broadly sympathetic to Islamism. Whilst only a small proportion will agree with al-Qaida’s tactics, many will agree with their overall goal of creating a single ‘Islamic state’ which would bring together all Muslims around the world under a single government and then impose on them a single interpretation of sharia as state law.”

The document adds that if local or central government engages with such groups “it risks empowering proponents of the ideology, if not the methodology, that is behind terrorism”.